Chapter 16. Psychopathology: Biological Basis of Behavior Disorders

By Melissa Healy contact the reporter
Schizophrenia is one of psychiatry's most puzzling afflictions, with a complex of symptoms that goes far beyond its hallmark hallucinations and delusional thinking. But new research has found connections among several of schizophrenia's peculiar collection of symptoms -- including agitation and memory problems -- and linked them to a single genetic variant among the hundreds thought to heighten risk of the disorder.
The findings offer new insights into the molecular basis for schizophrenia and could lead to treatments for the disease that are more targeted and more comprehensive.
Published Monday in the journal Nature Neuroscience, the study looks at how a gene variant called Arp2/3 contributes to psychosis, agitation and problems of short- and long-term memory. Mice that were genetically modified to lack the Arp2/3 gene variant showed all three symptoms (although to measure psychosis in mice, scientists looked instead for an abnormal startle response that is also seen in humans in the grips of psychosis).
The study's authors, led by Duke University neurobiologist Scott Soderling, then dug below those behaviors to see whether brain abnormalities linked to such behaviors had anything in common. Mice that lacked the Arp2/3 gene variant, they discovered, had not only symptoms of schizophrenia, but also several of the underlying brain abnormalities most closely linked to psychosis, agitation and memory problems seen in those with schizophrenia.